“A creative mind in panic is a beautiful thing to see” - a tag line for the early days of Theatresports, the acting version of a sporting head-to-head contest based on the teachings of Keith Johnstone - shows the performer in a vulnerable state, and if played well, will drag the audience into that space where they feel that vulnerableness keenly as well. ImproMafia brought Hooking Up to MELT Festival of Queer Arts & Culture last year, this time it’s a larger canvas for the five improvisers to paint on - TRADE - that all encompassing word for the casual, seemingly nonchalant sexual connection in the diverse in gender & sexuality world. However, this nearly one hour of unscripted, minimalist structure scene playing is not just about who gets it on with who.
Between them, Amy Driscoll, Gabby Carbon, Mark Grimes, Ryan Goodwin & Tom Dunstan, explore almost every version of connection that two (or three) people can make in the modern queer world. Starting with a raunchy post coital conversation between two long-term partners (Grimes & Goodwin), the scenes move swiftly through some very funny outcomes - Carbon and Driscoll as two recently met lovers where one is moving much faster to a “settled” future than the other, with Dunstan providing the inner monologue of one of the two who clearly is NOT ready for “kids & commitment”. One of the comedy highlights of the night where Goodwin plays the straight man being picked up by a lesbian character who wants to expand her horizons - all with the use of two highly suggestive “puppets” as the metaphors for their “pink bits”.
Throughout the show, each of the five actors give a short monologue, some touching but still funny, with Grimes’s reminiscence of his early days going out and meeting other young men in Glasgow had a totally unexpected, yet hilarious punchline. One of the combined strengths of these five performers is the ability to go with the offer made by another, and this is one of the unshakeable tenets of improvisation - the saying of “yes” sends the player and the audience on an adventure.
Another couple of highlights - Grimes as a “straight” man that prefers to hang out at gay bars and the confusing signals that sends to Goodwin’s hyper-sexual character; and the second last scene which draws deeply on the willingness to be vulnerable and draw the audience into that space with the actors - Driscoll & Grimes as a married couple who face Grimes’ coming out as a gay man, but without the storybook happy-happy-joy-joy. Driscoll is shattered and Grimes completely at a loss as he loses his best friend, but the intervention of Dunstand as “future Mark” showing what will be when he lives the truth he has just accepted is poignant and tugs at the heartstrings.
Improv is a dangerous game - the risk is always there that a scene will just fall flat and the laughs won’t come or the audience won’t understand who these characters are. TRADE never falls into that danger zone, however, they constantly ride the edge of a cresting swell and surf the waves of audience laughter to a rousing curtain call.
28-29 June, 2019
Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
Blair Martin